Since the day after the last round and closing ceremony was a travel day for most players and journalists, the number of tweets concerning the Olympiad was alarmingly low. Everybody seemed to be at the airport:

@ChessVibes: “Early morning scene at Tromsø airport.”

Breaking: Now we know the real reason why Magnus Carlsen left Tromsø an day earlier!

Nice tweet about Magnus here by John Saunders: @johnchess: “An article about the Chess Olympiad auto-translated from Norwegian referred to Magnus Carlsen as the “Norwegian wood champion”.

@backranktristan: “After his Olympiad he probably is pine-ing for the fjords… ”

What did you do on the airport, @GMHikaru:” Had a lot of fun playing blitz with some of the African players at the Tromso airport!”

Some people obviously had a party after the closing ceremony, what do you think Jonathan? @GMJtis:“Looked out my hotel window this morning, saw full set of clothes and a pair of boots had landed from above. Someone’s been partying”. Sounds like @LennartOotes to me: “Had a wonderful time at the Olympiad. Thanks everyone! If someone happens to find my voice (maybe in no24), please send me a pm.”

Did you like the closing ceremony, Gunnar? @skaksamband: “Good closing ceremony but it seems that No way forgot to have a bar at he venue! 😉

A couple of people stayed another day: @GMJanGustafsson:“Still in Tromso. “All players left the Chess Olympiad. No.24 is now full of of middle-aged locals. Feels weird.”

@chess24com:“Would like to report that Tromsø is now a sleepy Arctic backwater again, but there’s a cycle race”.

India

Of course, loads of tweets on the timeline about the winners of the Olympiad popped up, e.g. this tweet by my dear friend Yochanan Afek, @afekchess: “Big chapeau to medal winning teams especially the Chinese and Indian. A well deserved reward for tremendous efforts over the recent decades!”

@acciochess:”India won bronze at the chess olympiad! Lucky to have witnessed the history being created. 🙂 Congratulations team!”

Yes, India won bronze, and the Twitter timeline was suddenly full of Indians celebrating, @ChessNinja: “India winning bronze without Anand or Harikrishna is incredible. Also highlights bizarre pairing system in use. Played only 1 top 10 seed.” @polpodge: “How crazy the pairings were. China played 7 of the top 15. India 2. Thoroughly deserved top spot. Thoroughly undeserved 3rd.”

The press in India was overexcited, what do you say @asimpereira?

“According to The Hindu newspaper, India won a historic Silver!! News based on tweets?? = Blunder!!”

@ChessNotes:“Certain @vishy64theking & @HariChess must now face scrutiny for not playing. India almost certainly could have taken Gold.” @orengross: “Whether 2nd or 3rd India had an outstanding tournament, especially not having their two top players”.

@ChessinT: “Natalia Zhukova responded to the “loss” of Kateryna Lagno: “Getting rid of parasites is a painless process”

And what about the Russian men? @SunebergHansen: “Russia must hire a mentalcoach now! It was sad to see Svidler as the weakest link, think he is history in the national team”.

Why, Russia was just a bit unlucky, right Sergey? @SergeyKaryakin:“In a hard tournament we tried our best, but were a bit unlucky with the tie-breaks.”

@Kasparov63: “Russian men got a “category prize” in Tromso? What is that? Consolation prize? I don’t remember us needing those when I played on the team!”

In case you wonder why I do not add tweets of Chinese players, the reason is simple: Twitter is blocked in China, North Korea and Iran. However, in the site statistics I noticed that many people from China visit this blog!

Tragic end of Olympiad

Im this final report about the Chess Olympiad 2014 I have to include some sad tweets (again). You may have read the news that two players died on the the last day of the Olympiad, and many tweets about this tragedy popped up. Here are a few:

Teymur Rajabov @rajachess: “Condolences to the families of two chessplayers,died in Tromso, Kurt Meier’s from Seychelles and Alisher Anarkulov’s,Uzbekistan”.

@SilvioDanailov:“My sincere condolences to the families of the two players who passed away on the last day of Tromso 2014. Sad finish for such a great event”.

@SuneBergHansen:“Chess is the most dangerous sport! A game takes hours and you can play untill you die, therefore dying during a game is ‘normal”.

Ellen Carlsen, @ellenoec: “Are two dead people and one disapperead team unusual happenings at a Chess Olympiad?”

One final tweet and a picture by @chess24com:

“The last remnants of the Chess Olympiad are almost gone from Tromsø”.

Time to relax now, Garry? @Kasparov63:“Resting with family after very long and tiring FIDE campaign. I didn’t win, but my team and I did a lot of good to promote chess.”

@bbalgabaev: “It’s true. We are waiting for you in 4 yrs time. It’s real pleasure to beat such opponent like you. Sorry, not to beat, to crush”

More chess coming up…

Some players do not seem to get enough: @erwinlami: “No rest after the Olympiad! Today gave a simul in Heemskerk -a town close to Wijk aan Zee”.

And @2700chess tweeted on Saturday: “Shirov (2712.0) lost his first round game at the Riga Technical University Open 2014 to Armbrust Florian (2268, GER)”

@theparasg:“Feels like the Chess Olympiad got over too soon. Where will I get my daily fix of fandom now?”

Well, Paras, the St. Louis Chess Club @CCSCSL has very good news for you: “We’re 2 weeks away from the strongest chess tournament in history. Will you be in STL to witness it?”

Last day of the Olympiad, last chance to get rid of potential excess baggage before flying home: @ChessNinja:” I’ve got a few Kasparov shirts, bags, & books left if anyone in Tromso still needs some parting swag. Losing Sale! Everything Must Go!”

Last round in Tromsø. Time flies when you are having fun. It is in the nature of things that events like the Chess Olympiad come to an end. Today, an impressive career came to an end. In yesterday’s edition of your favourite Twitter blog several tweets popped up claiming that Judit Polgar would retire. However, there was no confirmation of this news by the “retiring queen” herself. Today however, Judit confirmed her retirement in a tweet:

@GMJuditPolgar: “It’s been an amazing 25 years! Huge thanks everyone, especially my wonderful family for supporting this long journey!”

@PattyLlaneza: “I hope Hou Yifan retires from women’s chess to make up for Judit Polgar’s retirement from competitive chess.”

@Kasparov63: “Welcome to the retiree club, I am afraid it’s a lot more work than playing chess. Soon you’ll want to play again to rest!”

Batumi!

A somewhat mysterious tweet popped up late last night by @bbalgabaev: “93-58 for Batumi”. What does that mean, Gunnar Bjornsson? @skaksambamd:“Chess Olympiad 2018 will be in Batumi, Georgia”.

Olympiad photographer David Llada, who cannot be praised enough for the beautiful chess players portraits he made during the event, was not very happy with the result: @lladini: “South Africa sounded a much more tempting option, definitely.” Well, maybe his pals Tarjei and Lennart could cheer him up later: @lladini: “ I was going to stay in for a change, but Tarjei and Lennart are texting me from the bar around the corner. So difficult to say no!” Any news about the Olympiad 2020? “Chinese delegate said that they are going to prepare a bid for a Chess Olympiad 2020″, tweeted @bbalgabaev.

I certainly do not want to continue the “bad chess news day” like yesterday but again, I found some depressing tweets:

@chess24.com:“Hearing that some federations at the Olympiad have refused to pay their players the daily allowance given by the organisers…” followed by this tweet: “Uganda and Seychelles mentioned, with Ugandan players apparently in tears – also Burundi, though they had issues with disappearing players”.

Last round

The top rated games in this last round, calculated by @Megalovic: “R11 high combined Elo Mamedyarov-Nakamura 5530 Kramnik-MVL 5528 Aronian-Navara 5521 Bacrot-Grischuk 5515 Dominguez-Adams 5500″.

Last rounds in an Olympiad are always nerve-wracking affairs. It is not only about the fight for the medals in the team events, but many individual players have to chance to win individual medals and have the perhaps once-in-a-lifetime-chance to score IM or GM results. Add the starting time of 11:00 AM, which is three hours earlier than previous rounds, checking out of the hotels, packing suitcases, do last-minute souvenir shopping and 1000 other things that need to be arranged, and you get a tense atmosphere in which anything can happen.

Gold for China!

However, on the top boards, the Russian women and the Chinese men had no trouble to clinch home the gold medal. Lets have a look at the winners of the open section first:

@EuropeEchecs: “1st China 2nd Hungary 3rd India, it’s official”

@SuneBergHansen:” Impressive performance by China, Big congratulations for a fantastic performance – only one individual loss in 44 games”.

@SergeyKarjakin:“3 gold medals in Olympiads in a row! Great result of our women team!”

Great team results for China and Russia, but what about the best score on board one? @MarkTWIC: “The prestigious gold medal for top board performance goes to Veselin Topalov. Silver to Adams and Bronze to Giri”.

His USA teammate, Sam Shankland had a slightly better result: @GMShanky: “The best result of my life was finished with the only real disappointment of the event. 9.0/10, personal gold medal, 2646, but no World Team”.

@GMGawain: “Sorry team mates and England fans. Somehow the chess didn’t gel at all this time. At least I know there’s still lots to work on.”

@hansenchess: “Saved my worst chess for the final four games of the Olympiad. pity…..” @GMGawain:”I hear you. At least it’s over”

@gueorgss :“After a promising start,a total collapse (with the exception of Topalov) of the Bulgarian male chess-team in the last rounds”

@GMRobinVK:“The last supper withTeam Holland. Great team, great event, but my play still to be improved! “

@AnishGiri: “Only 12th place for us, but a clear first when it comes to the tea(m)spirit!! Bronze on board 1 for me is pleasant though!”

More to come…..

An neverending number of tweets from India suddenly popped up on my Tweetdeck after it became clear that India miraculously won the bronze medal in the open section. Not only in my timeline, obviously…

@GMJtis:“I am now realizing how many Indian tweeters I follow after the Carlsen-Anand match – timeline full of celebration.”

In the next episode of “The Olympiad in Tweets” I will select more tweets about India, individual performances, the closing ceremony and the usual left-overs.

I have to end this episode today with some sad tweets:

@FabianoCaruana: “If what I’ve heard is correct, someone died during the round today.Puts the chess results in perspective. Condolences to the team and family”.

@GMHikaru: “Really sad to hear that one of the players from Seychelles apparently died during the last round of the Olympiad today.”

@ChessVibes: “Closing ceremony started with a minute of silence as it was confirmed that the player of the Seychelles died. Terribly sad.”

@EnniscorthyChess: “Oh no, Chess Olympiad is on a rest day….. What will we do?” Any plans for today@LuisBlascioCruz:“Today Rest day. Day to make contacts and to enjoy the city”.

Let’s have a look at the last rest day on Wednesday. It must have been quite a depressing day in Tromsø, according to the number of “bad news” tweets!

Let’s kick off with Paco Vallejo, who went to a Carribean party, according to the hashtag: @Chessidharta: “#Caribbeanparty 2 am – “may i ask u smth personal” – Sure! – ” is it true that u had 60 girls in 2 months? ” ‘WTF . Kids Alcohol is bad. ”

Alcohol is bad, true, what about the music, Eric Hansen? @hansenchess: “Very mediocre music at the parties this Olympiad. Quite dissapointed!”

Perhaps Sabrina can tell us what is going on? @SChevannes: “Why can I hear what sounds like God awful karaoke coming through my bedroom window in Tromso 2014. Can anyone else hear it?”

Oh dear, sounds like it is not a good news day today? Any FIDE news to cheer you up, Nigel? @NigelShortChess: “I have had a glimpse of Hell. It resembles an endless FIDE General Assembly”.

@kevinbonham:“Today’s FIDE congress is going so slowly bryologists have discovered six new species of moss growing on”

Didn’t you get a job offer from FIDE, Nigel: @SteveGiddins: “Is it true you have accepted Kirsan’s African job offer?”

@NigelShortChess: “Yes. Having appointed me as Director of the $500,000 Africa fund 2 days ago, he now says he doesn’t have the power to do so :)”

No power, no funds, no money? Any news about the 20M? Let us check the FIDE website. Oh wait…: @mikhail_golubev:“Still no news at Fide.com on Ilyumzhinov’s 20 mln USD announcement. It’s logical: why to post every empty promise of the boss?”

Come on, give me some more bad news: @TarjeiJS: “Carlsen will NOT play the last round of the Chess Olympiad and will be leaving Tromsø tonight.” Tarjei added a twitpic from NRK later:

Yeah, keep them coming: @Echecs64: “RUS-FRA, worst last round pairing for ze Frenchies. Who will be out? Fressinet? Tkachiev?”

Big bad news item of the day: @ChessVibes: “Biggest news of today is the retirement of Judit Polgar……. (especially when confirmed…)

@times_chess: “A great honour for Times Chess that greatest female chessplayer in the history of the game has chosen “The Times” to announce her retirement”. @GMJanGustafsson: “Wow, Judit Polgar is retiring, is this for real?”

@MarkTwic: “If it turns out to be completely untrue then The Times has a huge amount of explaining to do.”

Any more retirement news, Hikaru? @GMHikara:“Is it my imagination or does this Olympiad feel like the end of a generation with many great players retiring or not competing again? “

@MarkTWIC:“I’m not sure everyone will retire but this feels like an pivotal Olympiad to me too”.

@GMHikaru:“Well, Kamsky has also said that this is his final Olympiad.”

All the bad Olympiad news packed in one tweet: @portisdos:“Carlsen say that will not play the last round. Polgar announce her retirement. Kirsan crush Kaparov and Short sing a song. “

@GregoryChess: “Is Susan Polgar retiring? LOL”

Ok, one positive tweet for you to end this depressing report. Some people seem to have fun in Tromsø:

@pogonina: “Pogoplane”.

One final tweet for today: Did you have a good day, Mig? @chessninja: If you try to tip housekeeping in this Norwegian hotel by putting money on the pillow, you come back and they’ve left it in a little stack.”

Phew, quite a busy day yesterday, don’t you think, Jonathan Tisdall? @GMjts:” I ended a long day of chess and politics yesterday by randomly tuning into the Borgias, coincidentally, an episode about a papal election…”

@MarkTwic: “How’s everyone feeling this morning? Or is it impossible to afford to get drunk in Tromso? I’m half asleep, late TWIC finish.”

Mig has some good news, though: @chessninja: “Only upside today is being able to unfollow Kirsan trolls now that tracking the official propaganda is no longer required for campaign.”

@GMastrokoukos: “Who is a troll, who is objective and who is in touch with reality has been proven (again) in these elections.”

@Kasparov63: “Yesterday’s election was a good day for 110 voters and a bad day for 110 million chessplayers. My thanks to all who supported me and chess.”

@ColCrouch: “It’s a bad sign that the losers of an election blame the voters.”

So what to do now? Any suggestions? @chessclublive:” Never has breaking away from FIDE made more sense. Kasparov could head up a rival organisation, boxing has many…”

Back to chess, back to Tromsø

Enough politics for now, let us concentrate on the games and matches in the penultimate round, the last round before the last rest day on Wednesday. I know that it is inflationary to use the words “big match” again, but Russia vs Ukraine is a big match: @GMjtis:” Russian women were shaky yesterday vs. Armenia – Final and most dramatic hurdle – today vs Ukraine, with Lagno facing former teammates.”

What about the open section @EinarGausel? :“Today it’s France vs China for all the marbles in the open section.” @chessninja: “Dammit, USA-Argentina, my two patrias, paired today in the Open Olympiad. May have to split the list, as they say.” @garylanechess tries to predict the England match (again): “England to beat Sweden 3-1, surely I can’t get it wrong again”.

The question of the day, by @TarjeiJS: “So how many losses will Russia face in Norway today? The Russian Men, Women and lawyers in court can potentially lose!”

Big story for the Norwegians today:

@Tromso2014: “Norwegian Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, visited the Olympiad today and made the first move on Magnus Carlsen’s board”.

Her comment in the NRK Studio after she made the opening move was picked up by @TarjeiJS:“It was actually Magnus Carlsen who decided which move to make.” @PattyLlaneza: “Are you sure the Norwegian Prime Minister played just the first move? The rest is all Carlsen’s doing? Seriously?”

It is quite an unusual opening Magnus choose today, am I right, @bennedik?“Magnus Carlsen is playing a rare bird of an opening today.” @sellig1947: “Romantic opening but Magnus playing again with fire. He could get burnt this time.”

@Majnu2006: “Magnus Carlsen in trouble against Saric. I have reason to believe that Magnus is human”. @PoisonedPwnPress: “Carlsen using Chess Olympiad as a bizarre training ground? Get a losing position and then practicing his defensive skills by fighting back?”

@chessnotes:“Seems safe to say that Magnus doesn’t play as well in Norway. Too many distractions?” @Outis6 explains:”It’s all those hot Norwegian chicks. You’d have trouble concentrating too.”

@theclosetgm: “Honestly, if Saric loses this game (or even draws it), Croatia should just deport him”.

@sergiofelter: “Anish Giri playing strong. Good tower attack against Kasimdzhanov”.

@EinarGausel: “Bad day at the office for Ivanchuk. Lost in 26 moves with white vs Mamedyarov.” @tamz029:“Sad to see golden oldies perform badly. Another loss for Ivanchuk, Kramnik out of top 10 and Kamsky out of the 2700-club.”

One “oldie” is doing fine , though: @MarkTWIC:“Michael Adams having a tremendous Olympiad. Maybe even secured gold on one if he doesn’t play the final round.” @anBhanna: “I hope he rests tomorrow and gets a medal. he should move over 2750 again after today.”

What is happening in the top match China vs France? @PoisonedPwnPress: “Yu Yangi up a pawn, and maybe more, against Fressinet. Could this be the defining game of the Chess Olympiad?” @ejhchess: “While everybody’s watching Carlsen lose, China might just have won the Olympiad”.

@nvmea: “YU YANGYI YOU LOVELY BOY!”

@top40chess: “Yu continues his incredible performance at the Chess Olympiad – he is now at 2696.1, up from world #76 to world #49”

Women’s section

Again, it’s all about Magnus on Twitter today. Enough tweets to write an extra edition “Saric vs. Carlsen in 10 tweets” ! Again, not that many tweets about the women’s section.

@Tromso2014:“Very tense match today between Russia and Ukraine, with Lahno facing her former country.”

@PoisonedPwnPress:“Ukraine has serious chances to beat Russia in the women’s section. 2 games drawn, Ukraine edge on 2 remaining”.

One of those remaining games was a real nail-biter: @nvmea:“Zhukova has been in time trouble since move 15 and she’s done just about well. Remind me who’s she married to”.

@PoisonedPwnPress: “Girya’s luck in saving lost positions has run out. Ukraine making things interesting, on the verge of beating Russia!!

@FSTIMJP: “I thought some chess experts claimed a few rounds ago that no one can stop Russia any more. How come lost in r10?”

RUS vs UKR is a politically charged match: @chesscampeona:“I am happy that the Russian & Ukrainian women could sit to play chess in peace and harmony. Hint, Hint, Putin”.

@pogonina:“ It’s a game of nerves. Our team lost to Ukraine 1.5-2.5, but Spain tied China 2-2. We are still 1 match point up going into the final round”.

@Eljanov: “I won my game today but we only drew with Azerbaijan. Natasha made my day! Congrats to our girls!”

Let’s go back to the Norway vs Croatia match (open section)…

@einargausel:“Slugsfest between Lie and Kozul is still a complete mess. The latter has 4 pieces for Q and R. Both kings naked” , and added later:”Lie got lit up like a Christmas tree by Kozul. Norway loses to Croatia.” What about Magnus? @MarkTWIC: “The list of players with a plus score against Carlsen goes up by one!

And to make the score even worse: @TarjeiJS: “Hammer loses too. Norway completely demolished by Croatia in what should’ve been a close match: 0,5-3,5″

@tromso2014: “Jon Ludvig Hammer was the last man standing…”

Bad news for the Norwegians, good news for Iceland!

@skaksamband: “The Icelanders are doing excellent things at Tromso2014 and are leading the Nordic Championship after 10 rounds!” Is that ok with you, @EivindSalen? “I am happy with that, and hope you can prove again the smallest is sometimes the greatest.”

Will Sam Shankland win a medal? @ChessVibes: “Good chance Sam Shankland, on 8.5/9, will win gold for board 5 since Palestine’s Christian Michel Yunis, who was on 7.0/7, lost today.” What do you think, @DanielRensch? “Sam. F*ing. Shankland. That’s all I have to say.”

Rest day

Last chance: @PolariaTromso:“Rest day tomorrow. Half price on tickets to Polaria for all accredited in the Chess Olympics.”

And one last tweet for today:”@chessnotes: “Vishy should lobby hard to get 2014 World Championship moved to Norway. Magnus is vulnerable at home.”

Big day in Tromsø: the FIDE Presidential elections were held today during the General Assembly at Tromsø University.

Many tweets were send from the hall. It was not allowed to film and without a livestream, Twitter became the most important source of information. You can find an excellent report of the presidential elections by eyewitness Peter Doggers on chess.com. In case you did not have the time to follow and sort all the tweets, here is an overview of the presidential election in 20 tweets!

Anyone for a game of chess today? Well, it seems that the events on the board will be overshadowed by the FIDE Elections. How would you describe it, @Jonathan_Rowson? : “In a large room in the northern tip of Europe, Superman battles aliens for control of (chess on) planet earth.”

Bad start of the day in Tromsø. @TarjeiJS:“Good thing there were no games (in the morning) today. There was a power outage in Tromsø, including the playing hall. Power back now”.

@OlimpiuUrcan: “Power outage and UFO arrivals/sightings are often part of the same story in some quarters”.

By the time you read this report, you probably know the outcome of the FIDE elections, therefore I will not sort the hundreds of tweets about the elections here. I have selected I number of tweets and created a storyline in the article “The FIDE Presidential Elections in 20Tweets”.

Round 9

Without further ado, let’s concentrate on more pleasant things- the games of 9th round of the Chess Olympiad. Why? @2700chess: “9 out of 10 (!) top world chess players are in action today at the Olympiad”. @Megalovic:“R9 highest combined Elo Topalov-Domiguez 5532 Carlsen-Solak 5509 Nakamura-Naiditsch 5496 Gelfand-Leko 5493 Navara-MVL 5484”.

Great battles ahead today, better watch the games, @PattyLlanaza:“Trying to keep my eyes off Twitter & the Fide Elections and watch the games. No disrespect to the players, but it’s tough.”

@chessdom: “A LOT of interesting games in the lower matches today, with multiple 2700+”.

With the lower matches, you mean the Russian men? What do you think Colin Crouch? @ColCrouch: “Board 1 – Ukraine Board 11 – Russia”. @TarjeiJS: “Can’t find the Russian team on any of the top boards. Where are they? Too much scrolling. Oh, there they are!”

@ginger_fm: “Looks like my old friend, Torbjorn Hansen’ has a great chance of beating Karjakin with Black! Go Torb’s!”. @EinarGausel: “Norway 2 scores three draws vs RUS. Urkedal probably getting gift wrapped by Grischuk, but still a great result”.

What happened on the top board? @PoisonedPwnPress:“China-Ukraine all draws. Tournament could be even tighter going into the last 2 rounds “.

How is the world champ doing today? @ejhchess: “Looking at Carlsen’s game and speaking no doubt too soon, what games have been lost in Olympiads by reigning world champions?”@EinarGausel: “Carlsen seems to be in serious trouble with white vs Solak. The latter running low on time, though”. @TarjeiJS:” Oh my. Computers going up and down like a yo-yo. Carlsen was lost, but is now winning.”

Women’s section

Let’s have a look at the women’s section: Anything spectacular going on, Claudia Munoz? @chesscampeona: “I am watching the Montenegro women about to beat the American women, of course, barring a miracle. Shocked”. Boris Smolik @nvmea is watching the Russian women playing Armenia: “Massive blunder from Lagno? Russia in trouble.” , and added later : “I absolutely fail to understand Mrktchian’s last moves. Is Gunina gonna win another bad position? Incredible”.

If you want to have a laugh, follow this account of this Russian geek: @BorisAAO, with tweets like : “Danielian ARM: RUS Lagno.31. SYMMETRICAL BALANCE OF FORCE. =(DEVELOPMENT MOBILITY SPACE). ISOLATED: b4/a6d4. GAME =. WHITE +/=”

Thanks for the explanation!

@pogonina:“Yet another very tense match. We barely defeated Armenia 2.5-1.5. But a win is a win!”

Back to the open section: how is our topscorer doing today? @MarkTWIC: “Sam Shankland will almost certainly lose his 100% record as he is black against Nisipeanu. But a draw will be fine anyway” @chessnotes: “7.5/8 is pretty spectacular, at any level.”

The St Louis Chess Club is proud, tweets and adds a great hashtag: @CCSCSL: “@GMShanky remains undefeated after making a good draw against GM Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu! GER-USA ends 2.0-2.0 #ShanksForTheMemories“.

That is enough for today, you just want to close Twitter and switch off the computer when you see tweets like: @ChessVibes: “Meanwhile, Zurab Azmaiparashvili defeated Silvio Danailov 33-18 to become the new President of the European Chess Union.”

Any important news for Round 10 on Tuesday?

@Tromso2014:“Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg will make the first move of R10 of the Chess Olympiad.”

And another bigmatch coming up: @chess24com:“Ukraine-Russia in the women’s event is the match to watch in tomorrow’s Chess Olympiad”

Chess fans worldwide have witnessed a very eventful and entertaining Round 7 on Saturday. Both top seeded teams and both world champions lost on the same day! Lots of great games to play through, right Mark? @MarkTWIC: “It’s 3am, time for bed. Goodnight all”.

An hour later, in Tromsø … @chessninja: “So, woke up at 4am instead of 5am today. Not an improvement”.

Why did you get up so early, Mig? @chessnotes has the answer: “Up & at ’em! There’s an election to win tomorrow. Last full day to make it happen. C-H-A-R-G-E!”

Ah, that is why Mark Crowther went to sleep that late. He had a late night endless chitchat about the FIDE Elections with Georg Mastrokoukos. Must have been a pretty constructive conversation right? @MarkTwic:“Waste of time arguing with GMastrokoukos. Great saying in movie “True Grit” – “You’ve done nothing when you’ve bested a fool.”

Of course, you can discuss for hours on end about this tweet by @Gmastrokoukos: “Kirsan took over a bankrupt FIDE in ’95 with Olympiads and WCC cycle in trouble. Today FIDE $$ healthy, OLs and united WCC cycle.”

@MarkTWIC: “That was part of the problem. The officials responsible for the bankruptcy didn’t go.”

@TarjeiJS added some fuel to the quarrel by tweeting: “It seems very clear that if Kasparov wins FIDE election, Carlsen – Anand will not take place in Sochi in November.” @GMastrokoukos: “If Kasparov ever won, many events would collapse, not only this one. Fortunately, such scenarios are only fiction.”

And it did not take long until another tweet from @GMastrokokous was posted: “Final set of excuses appear by Kasparov for his coming massive defeat. 2 days before the elections he asks to change the regulations!”

Et cetera et cetera.

You may have noticed, that I prefer to concentrate on tweets about the games and the players in this blog. I could post an endless number of tweets about the FIDE Election, but that would just go beyond the scope of this blog. And is just getting silly at times: @chessninja: “Young players from 3 LatAm teams told me they’d been ordered by their captains not to take any Kasparov booth stuff, not even books. Classy.”

Talking about silly:@alinihatyazici: Humour in Tromso, Kasparov will offer draw to Fide President in FIDE elections! “No draw! Sofia rules!” is our answer”.

@TarjeiJS has some quotes from an Interview the two candidates had with @madsAAndersen:

Kirsan: “Kasparov is a destroyer”

Kasparov: “Kirsan is scaring away chess players”.

Oh, and another info from @TarjeiJS: “Regarding theFIDE election, I should mention that the organisers are considering to hire extra security on the 11th.”

A particular match we should follow @EinarGausel? “China rating favorites on 3 out of 4 boards vs Azerbaijan in the open section today. Should be a good one.” But do they play in their best line-up?@GMjtis:“Today I am wondering about China’s missing men – does anyone know why Wang Hao and Bu Xiangxi are not in”.

Another game to look forward to: @Majnu2006: “Looking forward to watch the game Shirov vs Caruana. Will the board be on fire?”

Ok let us have a look at the game. What do you think @TarjeiJS? Couldn’t believe the position after 12 moves on board 1 of Italy-Latvia.

@MarkTWIC: “What’s the opposite of “Fire on Board”?”

@BasdeMelker spotted some real fire in the Match NED-BRA “Wow! Erwin L’Ami eventually sacrificed an entire rook for 4 ambitious pawns on the q-side!”

Let us have a look at world champion Magnus Carlsen. Has he recovered from his loss against Naiditsch yesterday? He is playing against a 2600+ GM. @Jonathan_Rowson:“You see one side is rated 2604 & think: not bad! But then you notice his opponent is *273* points higher.”

@PoisonedPwnPress: “Carlsen has conjured an advantage in the endgame, and his opponent is short on time”.

I think have read that tweet somewhere before.

Another exciting match @nvmea: “Russia – Spain is going crazy guys”. @PattyLlaneza: “Amusing how many Spanish fans are changing their tweets from “how could he miss that?” of some days ago to “go go go!!!” today :-)”. @PoisondPwnPress:” Kramnik played very aggressively against Vallejo, and his attacked fizzled. Dead lost down 3(!) pawns”.

@Jonathan_Rowson:“Respect to Paco, but sad to see Kramnik so comprehensively outplayed. He hasn’t recovered since candidates tiebreak.” Malcom Pein, tweeting under the handle@telegraphchess: “Kramnik thumped by Vallejo, Russia obviously cursed after taking organisers to court”

Again, hardly any tweets about the women’s section today. Let’s send @TarjeiJS over to have a look: “And the Russian women goes marching on. Already secured a 2,5-0,5 lead over Hungary, although they are in trouble on board 3”.

We have seen a lot of turnarounds in this Olympiad, and today @telegraphchess found another one: “Amazing turnaround in Guseinov-Ni Hua China set to win the match and open up the tournament !”

Agreed. From +1.65 to -92.52 (according to the engines on the official website) in 10 moves is a convincing turnaround.

@PoisonedPwnPress: “And just like that, China-Azerbaijan turned into a route. Chinese look unstoppable and take sole lead.”

One USA player seems to be unstoppable this Olympiad and his name is not Hikaru: @playchesscom:“Shanklastic! Shankland 7/7 USA a team of extremes…”@gmjlh: “I have some catching up to do! @GMShanky at 7/7!” @Chessnotes: “R8: Sam Shamkland turning in one of the greatest performances in USA team history (7/7), congrats!”

But not only a young player like Shankland scores heavily inTromsø: we have an oldie but goodie playing for England on board one: @top40chess:“Today at the Chess Olympiad, Michael Adams pulled further ahead in the race for board 1 gold. He’s climbed from world #21 to world #14 so far!” @johnchess: “England lost to Serbia but Mickey Adams won again to maintain his place as best performer on board one”.

Meanwhile, on the lower boards….@thims1985: OFFICIAL: Surinam 3.5-0.5 Nigeria (female) Unacceptable!! And a remarkable tweet from @Tromso2014: “PRESS RELEASE: Five players and two officials from Burundi have vanished from the Chess Olympiad in Tromsø”.

@PoisonedPwnPress:“Going into the last 3 rounds, teams with 12 points have realistic chances to medal, based on the previous 3 Olympiads.” @TarjeiJS:“With the 2-2 tie against Spain, we can already conclude that Russia will NOT win the Chess Olympiad”.

In previous reports I wrote that the number of tweets about the women’s Olympiad is rather low. Of course, it is difficult for the women to compete with the open section, in which you have many players who attract a lot of attention, e.g. Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Vladimir Kramnik to name just a few. We should not ignore the fact that the level of play in the open section is undoubtely higher and attracts more chess players.

When you look at the tweets more carefully, you may notice that most chess related tweets are written by men, although Twitter in general is used more by women than men, according to several stats.

Number of Chess tweets? Negligible!

In general, I have to say that the number of tweets about the Olympiad is disappointingly low. For an event that is marketed as “The world’s fourth largest sporting event” the number of tweets about the Chess Olympiad is negligible, bearing in mind that around 600.000.000 (!) tweets are written- every day, which is around 6000-7000 tweets- per second!

One of the reasons may be that the mass media is not interested in the Chess Olympiad (except in Norway, of course), despite the fact that August traditionally is an off-season for all kinds of big sporting events. (no football in the big European leagues yet, no NFL, NBA, Grand Slam Tennis, Summer Games etc.) There should be enough space on the sports pages for a short report on the Chess Olympiad!

I wonder if the press team in Tromsø sends out a short daily report and a few pictures to big news agencies worldwide? I checked several Google News editions for a news item about the Chess Olympiad. You may guess the answer. I know it is cosy in the chess microcosm, but why not think BIG when you have an event like the Chess Olympiad to promote?

Any interesting matches in the open section? The Norwegians are doing fine and they seem to have an easy match today: @EllisivReppen: “Norway-Germany! Germany playing without GM Jan Gustafsson, so easy peasy for Norway”.

(Ellisiv Reppen, Norway 2, picture by @chess24.com)

There are two other well-known grandmasters not playing in the Olympiad, ahum, what are the names again, Jonathan Tisdall? @gmjtis: “My Indian friends! Why are Anand and Harikrishna not playing in the Chess Olympiad?” And he got a quick reply by @asimpereira: “Anand has always disliked the “random” nature of the Oly format and rarely played. Hari has his own reasons, maybe AICF being one.”

Why are you asking, @GMJtis?“Doing statistics today, noticed that top Indian team would be ranked 4th – so it is a huge difference.”

Talking about Anand: @TarjeiJS: “Manager Agdestein speaking about Carlsen-Anand in Sochi. “This is not 100 % yet. We’ve put it on hold for the moment.”

But …, here and now is Tromsø and there are some big names playing big games: @MegaLovic: “R7 high combined Elo Carlsen-Naiditsch 5586 Aronian-Leko 5545 Topalov-Giri 5517 Navara-Grischuk 5511 Dominguez-Mamedyarov5503″.

As always, Tarjei J. Svensen does a great job spotting unusual stories and oddities in the playing hall. No reports about “zero tolerance” today, but @TarjeiJS keeps his eyes open: “I’ve seen at least two women players violating the dress code rules in the Chess Olympiad”. Tarjei, could you give us some details? @outis6:“Come on, man! Your public demands titillation! Preferably with pictures, of course”. @TarjeiJS: I am not sure if I want to go into details. 🙂

@MarkTWIC: “What are the new regulations? It used to be you had to wear worn jeans and a t-shirt that hadn’t been washed for a month.”

@Pookita: “Playing the cleavage gambit doesn’t work against other women. At least not usually :)”

No, I am not going to post a picture here of a girl at the chessboard, violating dress codes. Too easy. However, on this day on which the top match in the women’s section was moved over to the open section, to get more media coverage, we saw an afwul lot of beautiful pictures of female chess players by David Llada on Twitter. Wait: Objection, Your Honor!

Ouch, back to the games. Claudia Munoz wants to share a secret with us: @Chesscampeona:“If GM Irina Krush wins Board 1 today, Team USA (Women) will win the match against Armenia. You heard it from me :)”.

What’s happening on board one in the top match of the day, @MarkTWIC: “Sensation in the women’s match Russia vs China as Hou Yifan is almost certainly totally busted against Lagno in just 14 moves”.

Tough game ahead for the world champion Hou Yifan. How is the other world champ doing? The Norwegian hero is having an easy day at the office according to @EinarGausel: “Carlsen doing the bizz vs Naiditsch. No need for witchcraft today, it would seem. ” @PoisondPwnPress: “Looking at the other boards, seems like Norway is going to need a Carlsen win to take the match”.

How is the situation in other top matches? @ChessNotes: “Looks like strong Serbian team will be halted in in tracks by China, maybe even 4-0!” And how are the Dutchies doing vs. Bulgaria, @RobertRis?“Looks like holdable ending for Giri, Tivi and Loek are doing very well! 2.5 pnt & 2 MP are within reach!”

Team USA is working on a comeback: @PoisondPwnPress: “Shankland on his way to 6/6. This could be a crushing win for USA over UZB.” followed up later:” Onischuk and Shankland a combined 11.5/12 for the USA”.

@sagarch:“Both Akobian and Kamsky have been disappointing. Unfortunately you can bench only one of them.”

Don’t go away!

And sometimes…. things happen faster than you think. Do you have an update on NED vs_BUL for us @RobertRis? “NED-BUL is gonna be 0-4, what an incredible turnaround…Chess is such a cruel game!” His compratiot@majnu2006: “A sad day for the Dutch team “.

(The match ended 3-1)

@PattyLlaneza: “So I stop watching the Chess Olympiad for 1h and when I’m back Carlsen is losing & Russia has lost. Caissa’s ways are mysterious! :-)”

@MarkTWIC: “Most dramatic day of chess so far. Mixed fortunes for the two Russian teams. Big results everywhere”.

Big results? Where? @nvmea:“Yeah it’s just over, Czech Republic win 3-fucking-1 against Russia”. This is quite a dangerous result, what do you think @JokimDawar: “Now we’re waiting for the Russian Chess Federation to sue the Czechs”.

However, the Russian women had a better result: @pogonina:“Would have been a great day if our men’s team hadn’t suffered such a devastating 1-3 loss. Russia-China 3-1 though!” @nvmea: “Last 4 Olympiads, winners dropped only 3 points on the way (Armenia 2006 even in 13-rounds). Will be tough for Russia now.”

What a day. Did you see any good games today, Jonathan? @GMJtis: “Some spectacular games today. Dominguez with a combination like a boxing finish, great attacking energy from Navara and the Chinese winners.”

@Tromso2014: “Both World Champions, Magnus Carlsen and Hou Yifan, have lost their games in the same day!”

Time to recover and relax a bit after the games. What about a visit to @PolariaTromso: “Half price to all accredited in the Chess Olympics. (For free if you have FIDE rating over 2880.)”

Don’t wanna see the seals? You can go to a party today, although I think not everybody is invited?!

@Kasparov63: “Come! We also hired professional musicians! Tromsø party people! Tonight! (Nigel Short on guitar!)”

Mig Greengard started a series on Twitter with the hashtag #TromsoPickUpLines, so in case you need a pickup line at the party try this one: @Chessninja: “I’d love to buy you a drink but a beer here costs the average monthly salary in my country.”

Or this one, the last tweet for today: @bandwindia: ... Er… My name is Carlsen, Magnus Carlsen…

There a still a lot of chess experts and journalists coming to Tromsø for the second part of the Olympiad. Maybe they have some stories for us? @theparasg:“So many journalists at the Chess Olympiad but no truly interesting stories making it to their Twitter. Maybe we need another Fischer?”

BTW; what is the first thing to do when you arrive, @LennartOotes? “Arrived at the Tromso Chess Olympiad and immediately performed the Tinder check: I found only two chess girls on this dating platform. wtf”.

Perhaps, Lennart should try one of the #tromsopickuplines: @bioniclime: “How about I fianchetto my bishop in your pawn triangle?” or @elbandie: “Mind if I back rank you?”

@chessninja:“ You know, guys with big Elos are probably trying to compensate for something.”

Round 6

Back to business, back to chess. Big game (again) today for Magnus Carlsen: @manju2006:“Magnus will be playing the opponent who has the right attitude and the strengh to become his challenger for the world title”. But what is his name?@EinarGausdal: “Today’s top rating matchup will be Caruana(2801)-Carlsen(2877) as the home team’s first line-up takes on Italy”.

@GMJanGustafsson: “Norway-Italy means that Magnus Carlsen will face the World Number 3 2 games in a row..”

Do you have a particular game you want to follow, Jovan? @FSTIMJP “Great. But, Don Kaituu vs Diamini Sbonelo will possibly be a more entertaining game to follow.” What do you think, Robert?@RobertRis: “The rest day is over! Fireworks expected in game of two of my fav players: Mamedyarov-Jobava!”

Any news from our roving “zero-tolerance” reporter? @TarjeiJS:“Zero tolerance forfeits in Round 6: The whole Burundi women team and one Burundi player in the open.”

@Fantasy_Chess: “Did they continue on from the Burmuda party to the Burundi party? Must have been epic!”

Another big game this round, according to @garylanechess:” I think Adams will beat World no2 Aronian in todays game. All my predictions are right. Almost.” @TarjeiJS, have a look at England vs. Armenia, please? “Adams (ENG)-Aronian (ARM) 1/2-1/2 after 31 moves and only 1,5 hours.”

Talking about England: how is the weather @home, Mark? @MarkTwic: “We saw rainstorms two days ago at the Olympiad. Seems to have arrived outside my door in the UK” now. And Mark added a little later: “Gee whiz! Huge lightening strike nearby me!”

Back to the games. UZB-RUS is an interesting match. @chess24.com: “Kasimdzhanov has beaten Naiditsch, Ivanchuk & Kramnik in a row to move to his highest ever (live) rating. No jinxes”. @top40chess:“Kasimdzhanov catapults into the top 40 with his win against Kramnik – he’s at world #35 after gaining 12 places so far in the Chess Olympiad.”

And what is going on in the game of the day? @Chessnotes:R6: Carlsen displays that ” ‘Ol Black Magic” & somehow upends Caruana from even position. @Skrivanth_Govind:“Caruana succumbed to Carlsen’s magic which detracted him in the endgame”. @BobbyFiske: “Magnus just expelled Caruana from the exclusive Elo-2800 club in R6”.

Great game by Magnus again, what do you think, Vozi? @voziedwards: “Carlsen with black again waiting for his opponent to blunder rather than playing chess.”

The USA won 3-1 today vs. Paraguay, but the top boards Nakamura and Kamsky are struggling and only managed two draws: @Chessnotes: “USA left wondering what could have been, if 1-4 lineup were Caruana, Nakamura, So, Kamsky…”

Again, not many tweets about the women’s section. However, I found an interesting one: @PoisondPwnPress: “Judit Polgar and Hou Yifan combined score of 8-0. Both creeping up towards 2700.”

Maybe the women will get more attention on Saturday: @chess24.com:“In Round 7 the women steal the show, with no. 2 seeds Russia vs. no. 1 seeds China on the top table!”

This could be a very exciting match! It is a very exciting Olympiad, anyway, what do you think, Nora?